powerful was the illusion, that one not satisfied, as I was, that the East Bygd never lay on the East coast at all, might very easily have been tempted to believe that he had fallen in with traces of that vanished colony. I am the more careful to note this incident because it serves to throw some light, perhaps, upon an ancient legend, setting forth, that Amund, bishop of Skalholt (in Iceland), being, on a voyage from Norway to his see in 1530, driven near the East coast of Greenland, saw some of its natives on shore, driving their cattle home. The legend, indeed, goes on to state, that he did not land in consequence of a favourable wind springing up, which brought him the night after to his destination, a statement quite sufficient of itself to determine the degree of credit due to the story. Having run through the Sound of Ekallumiut to the distance of about twenty miles, we found that its direction changed to West. The island which bounds it to the S.W., has here two large ice-blinks, one of which was almost covered over with a thick stratum of earth, stones, and rubbish, the débris of the rocks between which it had forced its way. A little to the West of these ice-blinks a pretty little cove runs into the mainland in the direction of North, and on one of its banks we pitched our tent, in the midst of a Greenland encampment consisting of thirty tents. August 30. The place we now were at, was the Ekallumiut so often mentioned. The cove, the length of which is between one and two cable-lengths, has on both sides of it, but particularly on the eastern, fields of considerable extent, covered with dwarf-willows, juniper-berry, black crakeberry, and whortle-berry heath, the first-named growing to the height of two feet, and the whole interspersed with a good many patches of a fine species of grass, which, however, was very much burnt by the heat of the sun, except in the immediate vicinity of the brooks and rivulets that, in great number, ran down the sides of the hills, and intersected the level land in every direction. At the bottom of the cove, stretches an extensive valley, through which runs a stream, abounding in char, and having its source in the glaciers, of which several gigantic arms reach down into the valley from the height in the back-ground. On the banks of this brook the grass grew luxuriantly; but it was far from being, at many places, of a height fit for mowing, so that even this spot, where grass was more abundant than anywhere else perhaps along the whole coast, does not seem calculated to furnish. Winter fodder for any considerable number of cattle. Various flowers, among which the sweet-smelling lychnis, everywhere adorned the fields. The cliffs recede to a distance of from 200 to 300 paces from the sea, rising then, however, almost perpendicularly, far beyond the ordinary height, the clouds seeming to rest upon their snow-clad summits. Rock and ice-slides, are here events of frequent occurrence. Down a ravine on the S.W. side of the cove, particularly, huge masses of ice were every moment pre cipitated, crumbling in their fall to dust, and accompanied with a noise like thunder. At this really beautiful spot, the natives of the country round assemble for a few days during their brief Summer, to feast upon the char that are to be got here in great plenty and of great size, the black crakeberry, and angelica, and to lay in a stock of them for Winter use, and give themselves up to mirth and merrymaking. This evening they collected together in a body of some 200 or 250 persons, and began, by torch-light, their tambourinedance, a festivity to which I was invited by frequent messages sent me during the night, but in which I was prevented by a slight attack of fever from taking part. August 31. On waking this morning, I heard the tambourine. of my Greenland friends still going. I made haste therefore to join them, and though, when I reached the spot, they were on the point of breaking up, they continued their dance a little longer on my account. To form an adequate conception of the dance I witnessed on this occasion, it is absolutely necessary to have seen it. To describe it is no easy matter. The tambourine, as I have termed it, employed by them by way of musical accompaniment, is a simple ring, or hoop, of wood, with a piece of old boat-skin, well saturated with oil, stretched tightly over it, and furnished with a handle. This one of the party holds in his left-hand, and, taking his station in the centre, while the rest form a ring about him, and throwing off his jacket, strikes with a small wooden stick, extemporizing, after a brief prelude, a song, the subject of which is the chase of the seal, or some other, to them, important incident or event, the whole assembly joining, at the end of every strophe, in the chorus of "Eia-eia-a! Éia-eia-a!" During this performance, he makes unceasingly a sort of curtseying motion, and writhes and twists his head and eyes in the most laughable style imaginable. Nothing, however, can equal in absurdity the movements of his nether man, with which he describes entire circles, nay, figures of eight. This tambourine-dance is in high esteem among the Greenlanders. When about to take part in it, they put on their best holiday apparel, and the women take as much pride in performing it with what they consider grace, as our young belles in dancing a quadrille or a galoppe. It serves, however, not merely the purpose of amusement, but constitutes at the same time a sort of forum, before which all transgressors of their laws and customs are, in a manner, cited, and receive their merited reproof. When a Greenlander, to wit, thinks he has sustained a wrong or injury at another's hands, he composes a satirical song, which all his friends straightway learn by heart, and then makes known among the inhabitants of the place his intention of bringing the matter to arbitration. On the day appointed, the parties, with their partisans, assemble and form the ring, which done, the plaintiff, singing and dancing as above described, states his case, taking occasion to retaliate on : his adversary by as much ridicule and sarcasm as he can devise, to which, when he has finished, the other, singing and dancing in his turn, replies and thus the cause is pleaded, till both have nothing more to say, on which the spectators pronounce sentence at once, without appeal, and the adversaries part as good friends as if nothing had happened to disturb the harmony of their friendship. In this way the debtor sometimes is reminded of his debt, and the evil-doer receives a just rebuke for his misconduct. In truth, a better system for the prevention and punishment of offences, one at least better adapted to the disposition of the people among whom it obtains, could scarcely be devised, as there is nothing of which the Greenlander is so much afraid as to be despised or laughed at by his countrymen. This apprehension, there can be no doubt, deters many among them from the commission of offences, and it is to be regretted that the missionaries, losing sight of this peculiarity in their temper, have abolished this national dance on the West coast. We remained three days at this delightful spot, which, in compliment to her Majesty*, I named Queen Maria's Valley. During my stay there, which afforded my companions the repose they stood so much in need of after the hardships and fatigues we had undergone, I did not leave a nook or corner of the country round it unexplored, but found nowhere the least vestige of ancient European colonization, though the Icelanders, if they ever did settle on the East coast at all, would scarcely have passed this spot by, which, of all that I have seen on the East coast, is the best adapted to the purposes of colonization, better, indeed, than any of those sites in the district of Juliana's-hope, where ruins of their dwellings are to be seen. I collected here some specimens of mineralogy and botany, of which our distinguished botanist, Professor Hornemann, one of the members of the Commission appointed to superintend the concerns of the expedition, has, since my return, assigned the names and places. A list of them will be found among the Appendices. On the 3rd of September we left Queen Maria's Valley, and with us all the Greenlanders there assembled, who immediately departed various ways, with a view of repairing their Winter-dwellings, the roofs of which either fall in of themselves during the Summer, or are pulled down by the owners in order to purify the air within, and dry the damp clay walls. It was now high time for me, too, to think of Winter-quarters. The choice of the spot I left, however, entirely to Ernenek, well knowing that the Greenlanders are seldom successful in seal-catching at places with the localities of which they are not intimately acquainted; and he decided accordingly, on a place called Nukarbik, on the South side of a tolerably large island, between Cape Juel and Cape Moltke, where we found two *The Queen of Denmark. houses, one of them untenanted. This arranged, and having recommended Ernenek to collect the timber required for the roof, and to his wives the reparation of the walls, I proceeded further South in quest of provisions, for at Ekallumiut I had got nothing but promises, on which I dared not venture altogether to rely. As the ice under Cape Juel lay close up to the shore, I went back the way I came, through the Sound of Ekallumiut. This sound turns off at Queen Maria's Valley in the direction of S. E. On both sides of it were still seen numerous ice-blinks, one of them so much covered over with stones and rubbish as to be scarce distinguishable from the land, the more so, as some few blades of grass, or, rather, some few sprouts of black crakeberry heath, were growing on it, here and there, notwithstanding the coldness of the soil. On a point of land, called Kornouk, we found two dilapidated Greenland huts, in which lay a great number of human skulls and skeletons, and near them several graves, all, save two, open and untenanted. Doubtless the wretched inhabitants of this spot had, to a man, perished here of famine, during some severe Winter, and, foreseeing their inevitable fate, previously dug their own graves. The whole naze was flat, and thickly covered with grass. In a small fresh-water lake, the verdure round which was of the brightest green, I found a couple of birds of the duck family, with the names of which my boat-women were unacquainted. Due West of this naze, a firth runs into the land the distance of three miles. The cliffs about it are lofty and rugged, rising abruptly out of the sea, so as to leave little or no underland, and thickly studded with ice-blinks. They showed fewer signs of vegetation than the heights about Ikarisarsuk, or the Sound of Ekallumiut. About midway between Kornouk and this fiord lies a small island, the only one of the sort I have ever seen. It seems a huge pile of stones heaped upon one another, no solid mass of rock being anywhere observable, not even below the water's edge. Still there is no indication of its being of volcanic origin. Close to it, on every side, the soundings are deep, as is the case indeed everywhere in this sound, except in the vicinity of Queen Maria's Valley, where the stream I have mentioned deposits sand in such quantity that the whole cove is dry at low water. At the southern entrance of the sound we met three families, on their return from the fair of Alluk, and learned from them Mr. Vahl's safe and speedy arrival. Shortly after it came on to blow hard from S. E., which prevented our further progress. We therefore hauled up our boat at Amitoarsuk, in lat. 63° 15′, where I found a little bay, forming an excellent harbour, with from three to five fathom water, and good sandy bottom. I gave it the name of Caroline Amelia's Harbour. It must, doubtless, be quite secure from driftice, as the entrance into it is protected by a barrier of small islands and skerries. The almost constant impracticability of the sea, outside, makes it, however, highly improbable that ships will ever be able to derive any benefit from it. Our next tenting-station was on the northern side of the Island of Asiouikasik, in a cove into which a char-stream, springing from a neighbouring mountainlake, empties itself. The sound North of this island was still, as in the month of July, covered with a thick sheet of ice, a clear proof that it had remained frozen the whole Summer through. Here, too, there is good anchorage, with from five to six fathom water. On the northern shore of Asiouikasik, in a small valley, I saw some red snow, a phenomenon to be attributed, no doubt, to the presence of some vegetable pollen.* At Omenak, where I arrived on the 17th of September, I found five families, all old acquaintances. Here I purchased about four weeks' provisions, consisting of dried and rotten seal's-flesh, and might, perhaps, have got a larger quantity, had I been able to offer red ribbons, linen or cloth, in payment for it, articles which are here in universal request, insomuch that I had been obliged, some time before, to cut up a cloth petticoat into ribbons for the purpose of adorning the heads and top-knots of the East-Greenland ladies. Winter being now close at hand, I dared not venture further South. Stormy weather, however, prevented my setting out on my way back till the 27th of September, on the morning of which day I once more left Omenak. Four days after, on the 1st of October, namely, we again arrived at our Winter-quarters to be, at Nukarbik. WINTERING AT NUKARBIK; TOGETHER WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE CLIMATE, POPULATION, &c., OF THE EAST COAST. 1829-30. I HAD expected to find, on my arrival at Nukarbik, our Winterdwelling ready to be roofed; but nothing whatever had been done to it. Ernenek, with his own and three other families, had quietly taken up his quarters in one of the houses, and left me, my kajakker, and two Nennortalik women, to manage as we might for ourselves. There was of course nothing left for us but to set to work immediately, and this we did accordingly next morning; the earth, however, was already frozen so hard, besides being covered with snow, that we got on but slowly with our labour. The snow and cold continued, till, at length, being absolutely unable to endure living longer in a tent, we were necessitated to move in, notwithstanding that our house was very far from being ready. We took possession of it, such as it was, upon the 28th of October. We Algarum Species, Brown. Ross's Voyage 8vo. ed., vol. ii., App. 195.—Protococcus nivalis, Hooker. See Appendix to Parry's Polar Voyage, p. 218, |